History of Australia
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The Commonwealth of Australia was proclaimed on 1 January 1901 as a federation of six self-governing former British colonies. The human history of Australia, however, commences with the arrival of the
Rock painting at Ubirr in Kakadu National Park. Evidence of Aboriginal art in Australia can be traced back some 30,000 years.
Kolaia man wearing a headdress worn in a fire ceremony, Forrest River, Western Australia. Aboriginal Australian religious practices associated with the Dreaming have been practised for tens of thousands of years.
A Luritja man demonstrating his method of attack with a large curved boomerang under cover of a thin shield (1920)
Abel Tasman, whose expedition of two ships was the first European expedition to discover Van Diemen's Land, now known as Tasmania
Penal colony
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A penal colony or exile colony is a settlement used to exile prisoners and separate them from the general population by placing them in a remote location, often an island or distant colonial territory
History of Australia
…London with accounts favouring colonisation at Botany Bay. The First Fleet of British ships arrived at Sydney Cove in January 1788 and established a penal colony. In the century that followed, the British established other colonies on the continent, and European explorers ventured into its interior. This period…
Inscribed stone honouring Irish prisoner John Mernagh
Penal colony in the Andaman Islands, British Raj (c. 1890s)